O.P. Earle principal Brian E. Murray is hoping Friday’s forecast includes a warm evening without rain.

On Friday night, March 1, Murray camped out on the roof of the school because students exceeded his challenge of adding 63,360 minutes to their academic time during one month.

Teachers and staff read an article, “7 Actions that Teachers Can Take Right Now: Text Complexity” by E. Hiebert, which indicated that an additional 7 minutes per day can make a huge difference in students’ knowledge and understanding. As a result, Mindy Littlefield, a fifth-grade math teacher, spearheaded the school wide initiative for students to add an additional 7 minutes of academic activity per day. The result: The O.P. Earle 7-Minute Challenge.

“I offered the challenge and set the goal high, however, they went above and beyond all of my expectations. I applaud their efforts,” Murray said. “The students and parents were motivated and quite tenacious at times to see me sleep on the roof. My ultimate goal for the school was to see students excited about reading and learning. Mission accomplished.”

The gauntlet was dropped and the challenge was delivered at an assembly on Jan. 7.  The weeks that followed were filled with students reading and recording additional academic minutes. Students were invited to link their paperclips together to track their individual and classroom totals.

Assistant Principal Lana O’ Shields said students got excited about tracking their progress. Students read so much in fact that Murray had to re-order massive amounts of paperclips twice.